 Good evening everyone nice to see such a big crowd here, but it's also going to be a very good event So thank you all very much for coming Approximately 10 years ago my Chief economist Sten Jacobsen Came home. I think it was from summer holiday actually and he threw a battered paperback at me and said Lars you got to read this book. It's actually a little bit more than 10 years to be honest, but He drew this book at me, and I don't know if you've seen the American paperback version of Atlas Rock We have to be highly motivated to read it because it's really really difficult very thin and small pages and letters so So even then it took me a little while to convince myself, but then again, I normally take stains recommendations. So so I read the book and I must say I was extremely Taken with with Atlas rock right from from that time because I think it in many way quantified very much ideas and feelings that I I had about Capitalism and politics and how the world worked and and here for the first time Although it didn't hugely change my mind on this for the first time I understood with a hundred percent certainty that I've been right all the time And of course, that's very nice to have the the foundation for for your views explain at the time I ran was not unknown, but she was very little known in in Denmark Kim for me that my partner here in Saxo Bank was also very fascinated with the book And we decided back then to publish in 2003. I believe it was we We published 10,000 copies of the of the US version Distributed it to to anybody we could think of members of Parliament Mayors political commentators journalists and of course a lot of people that we thought would be interested and over the years we have we've actually had to reprint it a couple of times so by now we we have also Donna Danish version, which is over there It's not enough for everyone, but I know some of you have it already So please don't don't be a hog here if you have it already let somebody else have a cup here So we send it out to all these people I'm not too sure if they If they all read it hasn't been much proof that they understood the message or perhaps Perhaps they misunderstood and thought it was a blueprint for how to run society, but But at least we gave them a chance I can remember one time being quite pleased because I saw a live TV interview with Holger co. Nilsen and right behind his head Was a copy of your verdenskjelvet? So that was at least some success, but I'm not sure that he read it either now the book is Increasingly relevant. I think it is almost prophetic as you as you will know if you read it I like to say that when I when we first started passing it out that we were sort of in Denmark probably reached around page 300 in this massive book, but unfortunately, I think we progressed to a leech to least page seven or eight hundred and Really, it's just a question of not getting to the end of this book But but there's so many things that is being predicted in Atlas rock that that actually is coming through not least in the financial crisis where it has been You know significantly accelerated. I still think Atlas rocked is the best description of Of what happens when when a society collapses under its weight of socialism and and and Statism and government involvement and and It is really frightening to to see how accurate many of these descriptions have been and Unfortunately, there's no real reason to suspect that That Ms. Rand should not be right about the rest of her analysis because it's really about the dynamics Implicit in in a society of that nature. I've been good friends with Iran for a long time since we we started speaking in connection with the first version of of Publishing the book back in in in the early 2000s You're on is a It's a very well-known speaker on on the subject of iron rant Commentator his orthes his own books, which you will see that we have we have given you a copy of his his brand new book the free market revolution and I can really think of Nobody better to to talk a little bit about the why Capitalism actually works in spite of all the bad press it gets at the moment and how free markets work So I would like you to to welcome your on and Pass over the the mic to you. Thank you very much for coming your own Thank you laws Thank you all for being here tonight Now I'm gonna take it that most of this audience is kind of pro-capitalist pro-free markets I see people nodding. I didn't know there were this many in Europe So I'm inspired. We're off to a good start All of us who a Supportive of free markets all of us who are supportive of capitalism Really need to start asking ourselves a really fundamental question and that question is why are we losing? Because we are losing the debate We are losing the battle Statism is growing all around us. I come from the United States where over the last 30 years We have lost over and over and over again and and this isn't a political issue in my view This isn't a democratic versus Republican issue You know George Bush was no friend of capitalism and free markets Not when you really understand what he did and you actually look at the policies I'd even argue that we've been losing in the United States and in Europe for a hundred years for a hundred years Government has only grown Regulations have only increased Redistribution of wealth has only intensified There's been no momentum in the other direction even the so-called Reagan revolution in the United States was very short-lived probably around six years and Government spending government spending is always a good proxy for the level of government involvement in the economy Government spending on a Ronald Reagan doubled in his eight years in office Now the reason he's considered a friend of the markets is because the previous eight years it had tripled So he slowed the rate of growth But it's still true that from a purely economic perspective One could argue that the state had grown under Reagan and it economic freedom actually in the long-term had shrunk So we have been losing this battle for a hundred years Republicans Democrats in America at least it hasn't mattered There have been small victories here and there the Thatcher revolution Ronald Reagan for a while But in the overall picture we've lost and We really need to ask the question of why because we shouldn't be losing and the reason we shouldn't be losing is because we're right We have truth on our side And I think the truth is pretty self-evident. I don't think it's that hard Capitalism works Free markets create economic wealth The standard of living of people in relatively in free markets relative to non-free markets there's no comparison and The freer you make a market The higher the standard of living This is an empirical truth and it's not an empirical truth that is hidden from us It is an empirical truth that stares us in the face If you travel around the world you see it You see countries that have engaged in Economic freedom succeed to the extent that they engage in that economic freedom countries that don't stay poor if the standard of value is Standard of living if the standard of value is wealth creation then capitalism has won It's unequivocal, you know, we've got for the last 200 years. We've been running an economic experiment We tried all kinds of various economic systems. We've tried all kinds of models and The conclusion should be obvious, you know, we tried the extreme form of socialism, right? We tried communism. We know we know it doesn't work. It results in tens of millions of people dying in the standard of living being really really low We've tried I wouldn't say the extreme form of capitalism, but close And what was the result when the United States and Europe? experimented with free markets in the 19th century and early part of the 20th century Well an explosion of economic growth the creation of a middle class the tripling of European population The standard of living going through the roof unimaginable the difference in standard of living between 1750 and 1910 I mean it's just unimaginable that difference and what caused that The industrial evolution what caused it is capitalism what caused it on markets No, America is a great example 1776 when America was founded it was a second maybe third-rate colony of the United Kingdom Right the reason the Americans won the War of Independence I tell my American friends to their dismay It's not because they were that good, but because England didn't care that much They were worried about real wars with France and Spain, you know real powers, right? But by 1914 The United States was the strongest military and industrial power in the world Now what happened in those 140 years? Magic miracle socialism statism No, you got the country that was most free with Capitalism flourished and it went from a third-rank colony to the mightiest industrial power in human history That's the power of capitalism. That's the power of freedom And yet we've ejected Now not only have we done an experiment across time and by the way, we've experimented with all the different variations Right a little bit of socialism more freedom more socialism less freedom and again the statistics all line up You get you get this nice correlation Between economic freedom and wealth creation Economic freedom standard of living Asia's figured this out, right? This is why they've moved towards economic freedom And what's the result? Hundreds of millions of people rising up from poverty This is a system. We all hate right a system that allows the poor to rise to from poverty to be middle-class Salvation disappears Right the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism throughout human history have been The poor it's unequivocal so we've run experiment across time But we also run it across geographies, right Asia's a good example In spite of the fact that the financial crisis has been blamed on capitalism this financial crisis in every aspect of it Was caused from beginning to end by government policy From beginning to end and the more you delve into it the more you understand what actually happened The more you dig down you find government policies you find regulations you find government controls that incentivize by it behavior that cause bad behavior That necessitated bad behavior And yet who do we blame? Capitalism so what's going on here, right? We've got empirical evidence to suggest that capitalism works that it's good that it produces standard of living And we've got a reality where we are moving away from it. We're rejecting it We're increasing the size of government increasing the size of regulations increasing the size of Redistribution, how does this how do we how do we make this fit? Every time there's a crisis we blame it on bankers we blame it on the markets And on free markets, you know, this is part of the joke, right? People blame free markets for the for the financial crisis, right? Because we all know that in 2007 we had free markets in America and the funny thing is that they they they blame it on free markets and banking Banking in the United States is the most regulated industry in the country No business is more regulated than banking What free market? free market in mortgages The biggest buy-off mortgages were Freddie and Fanny government entities. What free market in mortgages? Free market in home building? All of these industries are the most regulated businesses It's no surprise that when the crisis happened it happens in the most regulated controlled businesses not in the free ones Doesn't matter. We still blame it on markets, right? We blame a great depression on Wall Street Now no serious economist today believes the Great Depression was caused by Wall Street Paul Krugman doesn't count as a serious economist And even Paul Krugman knows that it wasn't caused by the Great Depression by Wall Street We all get it. It was caused, you know, the science is in it was caused by the Federal Reserve It was caused by bad government policies. There's a whole string of reasons, but it wasn't caused by business They responded to the incentives created by government Doesn't matter. We still teach in our high schools in our colleges that was caused by the Great Depression by by the Great Depression was caused by business So something is going on here There's something deep down inside of us That rejects capitalism that rejects free markets and that is willing to evade to ignore To be blind to reality in our attempts to fight against capitalism We're willing to ignore history. We're willing to ignore Hong Kong. We're willing to ignore success We're willing to ignore the real causes of the financial crisis in our quest to reject Free markets to reject capitalism and the question has to be asked. Why? What is it about this system? What is it about free markets? What is it about capitalism that we so despise that we instinctually Instinctually in our culture we rebel against it. Well, what is capitalism about? What are free markets about? What do people go into the marketplace to do? Why do we participate in the marketplace? Why does Steve Jobs build one of these? It's an iPhone What does he build one of these to make? Money Right has the first one of these had a profit margin of 60% Steve Jobs wanted to make money make a profit Now it wasn't just about money, granted All right, what else about Steve Jobs wanted to create this? He had a passion for this He had a passion for beautiful things that he wanted that he imagined and he wanted to see out there in the world But this iPhone is about whom? The creation of this iPhone is about whom? It's about Steve Jobs Does Steve Jobs care about me? Not really care about you Not really you in many ways a means to an end the end was his profit his vision This is about Steve Jobs Business is there to make money to make a profit Business is there for Themselves their own self-interest Businesses about self-interest Now in 2008, you know the economy was in the US was spiraling out of control really declining And I went to them all to buy one of these right because I wanted to help stimulate the US economy Because I know that's why you guys go shopping, right? It's to help your fellow man You want to make sure that their jobs out there in the retail stores and that people have Right Right now Why do you go shopping? What do you buy an iPhone what do you go to the mall? For whose interests to maximize social utility to Benefit your fellow man No, you go to the mall for your self-interest because you believe that the iPhone will make you more productive because it's cool because you want to Play with it You go buy a nice clothes because you want to look good both on the production side and on the consumption side markets are about self-interest They're about people pursuing their own self-interest That's what markets are about We can pretend otherwise We can write about the social utility of whatever But the bottom at the end of the day that's what they were about it And this is not a new observation Adam Smith tells us this in the wealth of nations He says the baker bakes the bread not because he loves us Not because he cares about us But because he needs to make a living for himself. He needs to feed his family He's trying and he loves baking bread. It's fun for him, right? Hopefully But the fundamental is it's about the baker and the delivery guy who takes the baked goods to the grocery store it's not doing it out of a sense of Helping his fellow man. He's doing it because he's trying to take care of his own family. He's trying to take care of himself He's trying to make a living Everybody in the marketplace is there for their own Self-interest that is the essence of capitalism. It is the essence of markets Again people pretend otherwise, but let's be honest because everybody knows this Everybody knows it It's about self-interest But what are we being taught about self-interest? What are we being taught from we were this big? About pursuing your self-interest Now I know what I was taught, you know, I grew up in a in a in a good Jewish family and my mother taught me that to be moral To be good to be just to be noble Means putting your interests Last not first It means being self-less not selfish It means Placing the well-being of others ahead of you now she didn't mean it right not really But that's how we position our moral ideal To be noble to be good to be virtuous is to sacrifice Not to pursue your own self-interest and what is the sacrifice? Well before we get to sacrifice when I bought the iPhone who lost Who was worse off for me buying the iPhone did Apple lose No, they made a profit Did I lose? No, cuz I'm better off right I paid $300 for this thing and I got something worth more than $300 to me Apple sold me this for $300 and they got something Worth more than this to them. They made a profit Trade is win-win. I win Apple wins. What is the sacrifice? I Give and what do I expect to get in return? What I expect to get in return? Less or nothing The whole point of a sacrifice is lose win The whole point otherwise we wouldn't call it a sacrifice. We'd call it a trade Trade is win-win sacrifice lose win But note that our ethics our mark code tells us that lose win is noble and good and just and win-win Not really that valuable from our moral perspective Right think of it this way When Bill Gates built Microsoft Made for himself tens of billions of dollars. How did he do it? He sold us all products He sold us all products and how much did we benefit from those products? They may be cost a hundred bucks right how much did we benefit from it? Well, I mean if you actually did the math in your head you would realize that you have gained much more than a hundred bucks $100 from every one of Microsoft's products It's probably in the tens of thousands if not in the hundreds of thousands of dollars the value that you got Bill Gates Microsoft touched every person on the planet They have increased the standard of living of everyone Making us more efficient making us more productive the ability to communicate by standardizing a platform You could go on and on he benefited all of humanity and Made for himself tens of billions of dollars in the process What kind of moral credit did we give Bill Gates for helping all of us? zero to negative When we think again not as a business leader as a business leader we all admire him right he was a success But as a moral person from a perspective of ethics, what do we think of Bill Gates? Yeah Negative or at best neutral what's ethical about that? He was making money now. When does Bill Gates become a good guy? When did Bill Gates become a good guy? When he left Microsoft so he was no longer benefiting and he started giving his money away When he became a philanthropist Then that now that's more always helping people Now I will guarantee to you I guarantee we can do the math That Bill Gates will affect and help more people with his works on Microsoft then he will ever do through charity By probably a factor of a hundred or a thousand There's no comparison He will impact more people in a positive way through Microsoft than he ever will through his charity yet his charitable work gets more credit his economic work His business work gets no more credit because he benefited from it because self-interest. We are taught is what? It's tainted. It's not more. So if you benefit from the work you do you can't claim all credit We've been taught that by all our religious and secular leaders forever If you benefit from something you don't get more credit. So here's the here's the distorted world. We live in This is a world in which capitalism cannot survive making stuff building stuff creating stuff From an ethical perspective Not so good Giving it away. Yes, that's great. Now. How do you give away stuff you haven't created? That's a separate question, right? Now, how do we make Bill Gates a saint? Right? He's a good guy now, but I think I figured out how he could become a saint, right? I haven't talked to the Pope so I can't guarantee this What would have what would he have to do? To to become from it again, we would all kind of make fun of him But at the same time we would all admire him morally. What would he have to do? He'd have to give it all away and That wouldn't be enough He'd have to move into a tent and If you could show some suffering some, you know blood would be good Then we'd say wow What a great person. I don't want to be that person, but what a great person All right That is the ethical world we live in We live a world in which we believe that suffering sacrifice giving is Noble and good and virtuous and everything and again creating building is bad Even though even though it's not even questionable the fact that the building and creating helps more people by far than the giving as I like to again use America as an example It's not the case that between 1776 and 1914 America became an industrially mighty country because of charity It didn't do it because it had great philanthropists It did it because it had great businessmen It did it because of the creators the wealth creators. It did it because business. It did it because a self-interest It didn't because people went out there to pursue their own self-interest. It's why people even emigrated to America Why did they go there? To make their lives better. Why do people go to Hong Kong to make their lives better? It's all about self-interest and Yet we condemn self-interest. We've ejected self-interest ethically we view it as Evil as wrong and what we view as good is helping and giving and charity And there's nothing wrong with any of those things, but are they the essence of virtue? Are they really what make good good? If that's the case Then socialism is the system for us because socialism is not about building creating making it's about giving Redistributing it's about being charitable with other people's money, of course, but being charitable, right? But note that it's so in my view as long as we hold this view as long as we hold this ethical view socialism will always win Statism will always win Every financial crisis will be blamed on bankers and businessmen. Why? Because they're self-interested Self-interest leads to what what so you know, this is the trick right on the one hand. They tell us be self-less Sacrifice that's good and that's noble Nobody but nobody really wants to be that so you have to make the alternative very unattractive So what are we told self-interest is really about does anybody say self-interest is about creating and building and making something? No, what are we told self-interest is about? When we point to the kid in the schoolyard and say see that kid over there, he's selfish Do we mean he's a builder and a creator and taking care of his own life and making it? No What are we what are we saying when you call somebody selfish? We're saying he's a lying cheating so be So be son of a bitch, right? right a really bad person Because we've associated our minds now we've been taught by the same people who teach us the virtue of self-lessness That being self-interested means being a liar being a cheetah the model for this is Bernie Madoff Right Bernie Madoff that's self-interest who wants to be Bernie Madoff nobody so this is all we've got is this other morality Is being self-less? Now what's Bernie made of self-interested? Did Bernie Madoff take care of himself? Did he pursue the kind of things that made his life the best life that it could be? Yeah, I see people nodding really you really think that huh didn't work out too well for Bernie How many people in this room have ever lied? Don't it doesn't work if what you really want is your own happiness If what you really want is success in life if what you really want is your self-interest Self-interest I dare you to find me a way of how to lie and achieve that Liars get caught Not good J. Oh Business people who won't do business with you spouses who leave you kids who won't talk to you lying does not work It's not a good strategy for self-interest Turns out that lying is quite what's the opposite of self-interest? It's quite self-destructive You know Bernie Madoff claims that he's happier now in jail than he was before he was caught and I believe him Because think about the times you have lied Multiply that by a hundred which is Bernie Madoff's life because he lied all the time he had to there was no way for him to Sustain it think about lying to your best friends think about lying to your family and think about what that does to you To your ability to function to your ability to live lying cheating and stealing are not self-interest But if we believe they are so think about this try to hold this right lying stealing cheating, that's what self-interest means capitalism equals self-interest Capitalism equals lying cheating and stealing So when there's a financial crisis when there's an economic crisis, who do we blame well the lying cheating and stealing guys the capitalists It's obvious And we want to what do we want to do? How do we control the lying and cheating and stealing because if you left them alone, right? If we let the free market work, they'd all lie stealing cheats. How do we control them? What do we call those controls? Regulations the whole regulatory state is there to catch Control regulate the lying stealing and cheating that we know will happen if we left them alone You know, I don't know if that exists here But in the United States when you walk into an elevator every elevator in the United States you walk into There's a little diploma on the wall that says that a government bureaucrat has certified that the elevator won't fall That it won't kill you Why do we need that? We need that because we're convinced that in a free market without government regulations Elevator builders would build elevators that killed people Because that's how you make money by killing your customers But we really believe this if we didn't have food inspectors McDonald's would poison all of us That is the rationale. Why because the self-interested and self-interest leads to lying stealing and cheating poisoning destroying your customers It's insanity when you say it out loud, but it's in everybody's subconscious. It's what we as a culture believe We believe businessmen will always lie stealing cheat Because we associated that with self-interest. I was on in 2002. You remember the Enron and World Come you remember all those scandals These were bad businessmen who committed Crimes right? About five six of them high profile all in very regulated industries. I would just mention right all in the telecom industries all Who were very involved in politics all of them, which is just an interesting side note But there was a law passed. There's a consequence of that. It was called Sarbanes-Oxley now You know put aside your knowledge of subjects like this is a Regulation basically has government monitor all of your counting numbers, you know It's very very burdensome accounting regulation for internal controls within a company It's why Saxo probably won't open offices in the United States because it's a disaster to do all this right Why was this passed? I mean there were some crooks They were caught they should go to jail end of story But no the assumption was we just happened to catch these five They're all crooks and what we need to do is have a mechanism to catch them and we'll do Salbanes-Oxley By the way, how many people are being caught by Salbanes-Oxley is committing fraud? Zero did it prevent the financial crisis? No, but nobody's gonna do away with it. It's there for good I was on bit, you know Bill O'Reilly the crazy American talk show guy I was on a show just After Enron and all these things were happening in the fall in the spring of 2002 and Bill O'Reilly was on a campaign To fire every CEO in America because he said they're all crooks Where does that come from? This notion that if you're self-interested if you're in business yourself interested in if you're self-interested You're lying cheating stealer and that's how we get the regulatory state That's why you regulate business That's why you want to control them So that's one piece of statism the other piece of state isn't the entitlement state now This one's easy. Why do we have an entitlement state if we believe in an ethic of selflessness? Well because an ethic of selflessness tells you that your moral duty your moral responsibility from when you're born is to help people in need and Since you don't do it well enough in a free market Since there's never enough charity to fulfill everybody's need in a free market We the government are gonna step in and help you be better people Because you know what on a day-to-day life. You're just too self-interested to help the people over there who need your money They need health care They need food They need something iPhones these days and you're just too focused on your own life to help them out So we're gonna increase your taxes a little bit take some money from you and give it to them Look, they're old and poor or they're young and poor. It doesn't matter. They tug at our heartstrings, right? You know when people say People vote their economic interests. I don't believe that I Don't believe that in America in this last election Of the ten wealthiest counties in the United States, how many do you think voted for Obama now understand that voting for Obama meant If you were wealthy that your taxes were gonna go up So by voting for Obama you voted to have your taxes go up of the ten wealthiest counties. How many went for Obama? You're more pessimistic than I am eight eight wealthy people voted to increase their taxes Because they think it's right They think it's just we should be helping those people over there. How are they gonna help themselves? They need stuff we were taught from when we this big again that we need to help those in need So the government's just helping us out It's just facilitating the wealth transfer that we should be engaged in voluntarily anyway And we're suckers for it. We can't complain and there's another element that they use here, right? Businessmen live the self-interested life. They're about profit about their vision about having fun enjoying their work being productive But what does it mean to be a moral hero we said it's about giving It's about who's who's the name that pops into mind when you think about morality, right? Mother Teresa So we're living over here in the in the physical material world of self-interest But the moral ideal is mother Teresa now We don't actually want to be mother Teresa, but that's what morality is and we're not living up to it What is that cause? What emotion does that cause? When you should be doing something, but you're doing something different So it's with a G guilt now guilt is the mechanism that You know philosophers Religious leaders and politicians have used forever to get us to do stuff. We don't want to do and This is a beautiful setup for guilt. This is perfect get those selfish businessmen They're not gonna vote to lower their taxes They're gonna vote to increase their taxes because it'll make them feel less guilty and it works because they do You go and you know, I was at a an awards dinner In in South Carolina. It's a very conservative place. This isn't about even about conservative and Leftist in America South Carolina awards there for lifetime achievement award to business leaders, right? There was I think eight of them and they read these long bios for each business leader ten minute bios nine minutes Well, let me say the other way around one minute on the business success one minute on their business success Nine minutes on the community service and charity. I mean that's insane and and the business leaders were fine with it because the one minute they feel guilty about Then nine minutes is to make up for the guilt It's to make up for the guilt So the fact that they built a business that they employed people that they created a service or product that everybody Benefited in the community from That is worth nothing. It's the charity that they give. That's what makes them good people This is insanity, but this is the world we live in and The reason is the reason is is our perception of self-interest and That nobody nobody out there is willing to defend it and This is Rand. I in Rand's real contribution to this debate in my view It she rejects This whole monocode She rejects the notion That you need to be selfless. She rejects the notion that sacrifices what nobility is about That selflessness is about is what morality is about She rejects 2,000 years of moral teachings and she returns in a sense to a Neurostatilian vision of morality Division of morality that says that no morality is the science that studies how to perfect our own lives for the achievement of our own happiness Morality is about self-interest It's about living the best life that you can live. It's about making the most of the one life you have on the truth It's about achieving your own personal values about Making yourself the best that you can make yourself living what Aristotle called it a life a flourishing life You do mania in Greek right to put it as flourishing or happy But a fulfilling flourishing full life as a human being with all the capacities that you're capable of as a human being That is not a Bernie Madoff life That is not a life of lying cheating at stealing. It's a life of building and creating and exercising your mind a life of rationally pursuing the values that make your life possible and It's not just any values. It's not about you know the whim of the moment That's Bernie Madoff is whims It's not that he sat down, but he didn't sit down one day and say, huh, I want to make a lot of money I know After lots of thoughts, I know I'll steal my best friend's money That's the best way to achieve a fulfilling flourishing successful life. No, that's not what Bernie Madoff did Bernie Madoff saw a pile of money and he felt like he wanted it. He desired it. So he took it. I Can guarantee very little thought went into the decision to take it Because if he had thought what would make me a really good life, that isn't what he would have chosen pyramid schemes even a young man can understand pyramid schemes don't work They lead to failure So what Rand is defining as a new morality a morality built around the idea of Making your life the best life that it can be a morality based on the values necessary for that and You see those values. By the way, if you walk around the building here, you see the values on the wall Because what is necessary For an individual to be successful what is necessary for all the values that we have all the values that we as human beings Have achieved all the good that we have achieved in the world. Where does it come from? How of we as a species survived how have we flourished what has made all of that possible? This is what we should look to find the kind of values that a true pursuit of self-interest will lead to because You know as a species were not that great If you look at your neighbor you can see that that's a joke We're pretty weak We're slow We don't have claws. We don't have fangs in the physical world of survival. We are pretty pathetic We would not have survived if not for what enough our minds if not for reason Reason is where we get our values reason is how we attain stuff reason is how we figured out how to Create agriculture how to hunt how to build buildings how to create computers everything that we have Out there is at the end of the day a product of the rational mind So if that's true, what does it mean to be self-interested? It means to pursue reason It means to be rational and means to think it needs to figure out the problems that we faced It doesn't mean just to emote it doesn't mean to do what you feel like doing it means to figure out What's good for me and to pursue that? That's what self-interest really means it's an objective standard of of reality of the rational mind in Choosing one's values and in how to pursue them So think about a morality that says that each one of us are more responsible He is not to help others helping others is fine, but that's not the essence of the morality But the essence of morality is pursuing our own happiness The essence of morality is making our lives the best life that it can be and That to do that we have to pursue rationality that we have to think they have to pursue Rational values that will truly rationally make our lives the best lives that it can be what kind of political system does a person who holds that morality want to pursue What kind of political system is consistent with that kind of Individualism if you will that's capitalism That says that Bill Gates is moral Bill Gates is a good guy Bill Gates is close to a saint Because he made 40 billion dollars for himself because the only way could have created 40 billion is by creating something and Then treating that something with other people. It's because he made his life better He had to Work at it. He had to exercise his mind. He had to be rational in his business dealings That's what made him a good guy and hey by the way he helped lots of people in the same time because that's how you make money You make money by helping other people Reason he's good is because He took care of himself He made good choices about his own life. I hope I don't know him that well, but at least in his business life We can say he's virtuous Indeed, I would argue that making money in a free market the market today a lot of the money is made through cronyism, but in a free market Making money is a sign of virtue It's a sign of virtue because it's a sign that you're a trader that you're not exploiting others That you're not allowing others to exploit you that you're trading value for value and that you're taking care of yourself You're taking care of your own life Now imagine a world in which we view businessmen as heroes The world of Atlas shrugged the heroes at least in Atlas shrug, right? They view each other as heroes. I know and views of them them as heroes They are the good guys They're the good guys because they make and create and build stuff Can they to be charitable? Sure, but is that the essence? That's not the essence of virtue. The essence of virtue is the building and creating Because the essence of virtue is self-interest not self-sacrifice not being selfless So in my view we are losing today Because we've lost the moral ethical battle. Indeed. We're not even fighting that battle Iron man is the only voice who fights that battle We're losing the battle because we're stuck in economic arguments where nobody cares about economic arguments If they think that businessmen and capitalism is immoral they will vote against it no matter what the economic Consequences are people do not vote their pocketbook. They vote virtue. They want to be good They want to think of themselves as good So they'll vote for the politicians and and Obama knows this because Obama in his speeches always talked about fairness Justice he didn't talk about economy because he had nothing to talk about But he talked about fairness and justice and they've already changed the way we think about fairness and justice What does fairness mean? Equality never used to mean that the old days fairness meant what? Getting what you deserve That's what fairness used to mean justice used to mean treating people the way they deserve today It means treating people the same. That's not justice But they've changed the way we think about the world Changed the language this morality is corrupted how we talk so We are playing on their Ethical they've they've got the ethical high ground. We're playing on their home advantage What happens when you play in sports on somebody else's when somebody else has a home advantage? They win most of the time if we play on their moral ground they win and The morality of selflessness is consistent with socialism if we play to the morality of selflessness We will get socialism The only way to win is to flip it on them It's to change the terms of the debate What is necessary today to achieve a free market? What is necessary is a revolution? But it's not an economic revolution We won the economic arguments a long time ago a long time ago We won them in the playing field of reality and we won them in the playing field of theory We've got the Hayek's and the Mises and the Freedman's we know the theory we know it works and we know in reality it works Where we've lost is the playing field of morality So the revolution is not an economic revolution Their revolution is a moral revolution What we need is to be able to defend capitalism from a moral ethical perspective We need to be able to defend the profit motive. We need to be able to defend self-interest And if we can do that we win Because no person engaged in his own self-interest Once the government paternalistic mother on his shoulder telling him what he can and cannot eat what elevator can and cannot walk Into what he can and cannot do and how he should use his money No, if you're off the pursuit of your own self-interest you want freedom you want to be left alone You want to be going out then try stuff you might fail But you learn from failure and you rise up and if you don't learn from failure whose problem is that? yours not mine So if we could convince people of a self in us Ethic of self-interest the argument for capitalism is trivial. It's just an argument to free themselves up And indeed if you think about the founding of America, which I think still symbolizes what freedom should mean and can mean It was founded not any economic principles But in principles a political freedom grounded in principles of individualism The most important political document in my view in human history is the Declaration of Independence the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 because in it they articulate a Universal truth that each one of us has an inalienable right an alia by the way means Nobody can take it away from you not even a majority Nobody each one of us is an inalienable right to what? To pursue the common good to bring about the common interest there maximize social utility. No They understood that the fundamental right is the pursuit of your own life Your own life, which means what what does a right to life means? It means the right to be free to make the decisions that you believe are necessary for your life That nobody can curse you into doing otherwise That's what a right to your life means That nobody can force you to do what you don't want to do That's what a right to liberty means and The spirit that we really need to capture if we're going to win the battle for capitalism the spirit that we need to capture is The spirit of an inalienable right and in a able right To the most selfish political statement in human history and an able right to pursue happiness Your happiness the individuals happiness If we can capture that spirit the spirit of the pursuit of happiness with a moral code that justifies it Then and only then Can we win? Thank you all so I'm gonna assume that they're gonna be some people going to challenge me Well at the very least ask me some questions There has to be a first Yes So to what to what extent is it moral to cheat in your taxes? I don't think there's anybody from the iOS here. Although it is on video Look, this is It's a question if you have to think through what is your self-interest. There's a heavy price to be paid if you're caught So that has to factor heavily but In my view at the end of the day taxes are theft It's an interesting Think about this your neighbor once You know is going through hard times. He doesn't have enough money to feed his family. Let's say He has only two options in life He can come to you and ask you for your help And if the neighbor's nice guy, we would probably help him, right? If we had the money and if our kids were well fed and everything we would help him That's one option The second option is he can pull out a gun and steal our money, but those are the only two options Now we pretend that by getting all of us into him and voting to take my money Right then it's okay, then it's not stealing anymore So that's what happens right the neighbor goes to the community and he says that guy has a lot of money I need money. Could you help me get his money for me? Now if you used if you use a Sicilian mafia to do that, we would say that's bad But we call it government and we say that's good Right because it's democracy and a majority decided but remember inalienable right Inalienable you can't take it away from you not even by majority rule You have an inalienable right to your life for your life Your property is part of your life. Nobody has a right to take it away from you so To the extent that you can work to protect your money your savings and not go to jail Go for it. Well, democracy is a tricky word Depends what we mean by democracy because we mean different things if we mean by democracy majority rule Majority gets to vote on everything Then you can never have freedom under democracy if that's what we mean by democracy remember Socrates the great Greek philosopher so Socrates is walking around Athens and He argues with young people and he's talking he's debating religion with him and the elders of Athens go wait a minute He's corrupting our youth. This is no good So they get together and they say what are we gonna do about Socrates? We need to silence him and they very quickly come to the conclusion that there's only one way to silence Socrates and that's to kill him so they vote and 51% or 60% or 70% who knows what the number is vote to kill Socrates So they give him a child as a poison and he drinks it and you know One story is the Plato says the sock plate as a student says socrates. Hey Socrates We can escape there's a tunnel and Socrates says no Democracy has spoken and he drinks the poison right that's democracy There's no free speech in democracy It's whatever the majority wants if the majority wants you to be able to speak then you speak if they don't want you to speak then You don't speak That is inconsistent with freedom The American system which is flawed But is as close as we've come to I think a free system is not a democratic system It has voting in it, but you only vote to read it's in the original intent over insignificant things The important stuff like free speech you don't vote on It doesn't matter if 99.9% of Americans don't like what I have to say Turns out I have a right to say it and nobody can stop me That's not a democracy. That's you know a constitutional republic or you can you know and I don't I think that You need to move to that kind of a system. You need to articulate politically What are the rights of the individual the right to life liberty property and pursuit of happiness? Which means that a majority can't take your stuff. It's stealing a Majority can't tell you how to run your business. It's none of their business a Majority cannot intervene in your life. That's what freedom what when we talk about freedom. What do we mean? What do we mean by freedom freedom from what? Freedom from what from oppression that's extreme. What what is a what is a softer word, right? Freedom from force from coercion, right? That's what we want. We want freedom from people forcing us to do things. We don't want to do So we need a political system that institutionalizes freedom from coercion it Institutionalized and we're pretty good at understanding that as an individual I can't cause you I can't steal your money Right. I can't defraud you. We've got that But what the founders of America understood is what is the most curse of element in our society in human history? What's the thing that cursed more people and cause more suffering and more deaths and more murder and more destruction than any other force? government Well and church that's why they separated the two and try to control both right So how do we if we want freedom? What do we need to do? We need to constrain governments and how do we constrain government? By empowering the individual by recognizing his right to his life That is the fundamental political principle the fundamental political principle of freedom is individual rights It's the right to life liberty property in the pursuit of happiness. That's the fundamental and if you don't fight for that You don't you you can't win and you you create political systems that violate those rights and therefore unfree No So isn't it anarchism is the question? No and the reason is Why do we hate coercion what is it about coercion that is That we reject Well think of it the flip side What I've articulated here is that the thing we want in pursuit of our values is our ability to reason our ability to think What is it that really stops thinking stops the ability of reason if I pull a gun and put it in your back and say from now on 2 plus 2 equals 5 and if it's not I'm gonna kill you Can you build a bridge? No, you can't really do anything your life is over your reasoning faculty is gone Forces the anti reason forces anti life coercion is anti everything What you want to be able to do in society is extract force out that is the only role of government The only role of government this institution is to extract force from society so that we can be left free You can't have a marketplace in force It's the opposite of a market. It's the counter market Antimarket, so you need an institution separate institution It's whole responsibility is the monopoly over the use of force and where you constrain it said only uses force To protect you it only uses force to retaliate to catch the crooks But never uses force on you if you're innocent and that's why you do need government I believe government is a necessary good Not a necessary evil, but a necessary good to protect our rights That's exactly what you need government for to protect individual rights to protect Us from coercion from other individuals and from other governments who might want to invade us and steal our stuff Yes in the back How do you make sure minimalist government doesn't grow into something monstrous? There are two things you need to do One is you have to have a robust explicit Constitution you have to create a government that is constrained to begin with right The United States did an okay job at that and that's why it's done so well for 200 years But it wasn't perfect. You could do a much better job writing a constitution than what the founders of America did You can be a lot more explicit about what you mean, but look at the end of the day no constitution can withstand People not agreeing with it The only way you can limit government and keep it limited is by convincing people that it's in their self-interest to have that By convincing all of that us that it's not in our self-interest To regulate and redistribute wealth and have our rights violated. It's not in anybody's true self-interest I mean my view is That the person who receives welfare Right the person who receives the entitlement check is the victim is The victim why are they the victim? Because they're being institutionalized into passivity. They're being institutionalized into poverty They will never strive They will never get a job. They will never be ambitious. They will never pursue real values Which means they will never be happy They will never gain self-esteem. They will never be happy and you see this in communities that have been Institutionalized into poverty you see it in the black community in America So many of them are welfare recipients the unemployment of my young people is so high That they've given up on a job. They've given up on life. They've given up on life Because you know what? Where do we get our self-esteem and our happiness from in spite of In spite of all our denials Where do we actually what do we spend most of our time? Where do we set the most ambitious goals at work? at our careers That's where you get your self-esteem That's where you get your real passion and there can be all kinds of work right But that's what you get it and if you if you deny people work You deny them the ability to be happy and successful You deny them to have you domineer you deny them the ability to flourish as human beings and it's not about the money it's about Knowing you can take care of yourself Knowing you can feed your family and yourself knowing you're creating something not just consuming it That knowledge is where you get that self-esteem It's where you get human happiness and that's what we deny when we have minimum wage You know one of my favorite topics minimum wage, right? All minimum wage does is create unemployment among whom among the people who are least Able among the poorest people That's why you have You know, you know 20 plus percent 25 percent unemployment among teenagers in the United States Why because of minimum wage? You know what they can only produce six bucks and yet businesses are forced to pay them ten bucks So they never buy never hire them Now somebody doesn't get a job at six bucks. How they ever gonna learn a skill to be able to make ten twenty forty a hundred bucks an hour How are they ever gonna advance in life? They are the victims of minimum wage That's what we need to explain And that has to be tinged with a morality because the morality says that happiness is your goal and Here's the way to achieve happiness you achieve happiness by working By being rational you're being denied that you should be demonstrating in the streets To get rid of the welfare state because it's crippling you That's the message we should be sending the recipients of the welfare state now. It's not an easy message But it is the message Yep, so this is the standard you cannot have a right to somebody else's stuff You cannot have a right rights don't conflict Right, so if ever you see a conflict then you're defining rights wrong All the right is is a freedom of action So when you say I have a right to my life It means I'm free to pursue the values necessary for my life as long as I don't violate the rights of others to pursue their life Right, that's it. That's all there is Does that mean I get free food? No, because we understand it to get free food means I Have to use coercion on somebody else to grow the fruit for me. I Can't have a right to somebody else's stuff. I can only ever write to be free to pursue my own values. That's it So it's a positive. It's an action. It's a freedom. It's not about stuff It's not about services. It's not about vacation. It's not about the health care if you have a right to health care It means doctors or slaves Because if you have a right to health care, it means they have to give it to you That's slavery They're working for you. You don't have to pay them By right they have to give it to you so that that can't be right So whenever whenever you have a right to somebody else's time or money or things, you know, it's not a right big question big philosophical question they are based on a Particular type of moral code. They're based on the moral code that are articulated. They're based on the idea that the purpose of life is your own happiness your pursuit of your rational values and then the philosophical question is well When you interact with other people, how do we how do we all get along right? How do we all in a society pursue our own rational values? What is the what is the Correct appropriate pro life pro happiness pro individual way in which we interact and work together That's what rights are rights of that code That allows Rational people to pursue their own happiness in a social context that the application of Rans rational self-interest morality to the realm of Politics of a society right So they come from philosophy they come as a logical consequence of the Needs the necessity of a moral code When it's applied in a political context, it doesn't come from God. It comes from our nature as human beings What we need in order to thrive what we need is to be free. That's what we need Rights are just a form of codifying those freedoms. That's it. Yes Yeah, I mean that just reinforces my point. Why is our goal perceived as a good guy? The reason our goal is perceived as a good guy is that he presents himself and people have accepted him as There for the public interest He's everything he does is for the common good. Oh By the way, he's becoming rich in the process But that's not the point the point is he's trying to make the world a better place Whether it's fighting against, you know global warming or being a politician or whatever it is his public persona is It's not about me It's not about me. It's about you guys. It's about the common good, you know, it's a really interesting phenomena, right? Why do we have just as it's an aside, but it's related Why do we hate JP Morgan JP Morgan was the famous banker who had a lot of power in the banking industry in the early part of the 20th century We hate JP Morgan But we love Bernanke Love but I mean as a culture we trust Bernanke or think back to the 90s. Oh, we love darling Greenspan We adore him. We'd listen to every word he said, but we trust Bernanke. We think he's in it Why what what works Bernanke a good guy and JP Morgan a bad guy even though I would argue and I think if you study economics JP Morgan did a lot more good than Bernanke or Bernanke and Greenspan do is damage and JP Morgan Built industrial America Yet. He's the bad guy. Why cuz he's self-interested. It's obvious. You can't challenge it and The Federal Reserve chairman he's in it for the public good He gets a small salary No bonus So he's the softee right he's just so he is being selfless and now if you read public choice And you know, you understand that there's a there's a perverted self-interest there, right? Irrational, I don't think it's real self-interest, but an irrational self-interest, right? But it doesn't matter he presented and the people buy him as a public servant, right? He's a public servant. We think public servants are good guys That's why we trust politicians. We claim we don't trust them in surveys and polls, but we do We let them get away with murder Or at least theft We don't trust businessmen because they're in it for themselves and that goes to Al Gore I'll go presents himself. He cares about the environment And he has a big house that burns more electricity than a whole neighborhood Right, but nobody nobody that doesn't sink in because they think of Al Gore as this public You know, in spite of our skepticism about politicians, we love them because they they They're serving the public servants. We like public servants. It's We don't trust businessmen Even though businessmen do a thousand times more good for the public than any Excuse me the politicians knew than any politician I had a second question. Is somebody who hasn't asked? Yeah in the back. Yes No So shouldn't Sure, so isn't Al Gore just pursuing his self-interest and therefore shouldn't he be admired? And my answer is no He's not pursuing his self-interest and no as a consequence. He shouldn't be admired Al Gore is just a boony made-off He just we don't see it as obviously but Al Gore, you know, bill clinton is the best example is bill clinton looks miserable He doesn't this guy these people are not happy They're not flourishing successful human beings. I wouldn't change places without go for all the money on the planet I think he's a miserable pathetic human being And I think he knows it I believe we are particular we as human beings are particular type of biological entity And if you study the biological this biological entity, which is human human beings We need certain things to be happy We need certain things to be successful to help self-esteem And when we reject those things when we deny those things, we will never be complete human beings I think that Al Gore rejects those he denies those And therefore is not he's pursuing the facade Of self-interest the pretense of self-interest, but he's not self-interested He's self-destructive. I think all these guys are self-destructive I think they're very few people and you can see this in the world. How many people are really really happy That you can really look at and say they live a flourishing Wonderful life that it just they embrace life. I mean, they're not that many people unfortunately They're not because we teach the opposite And I think I think some of them Because they're wealthy because they go after money does not mean That therefore they are successful success is not about the material It's not about how many dollars you have in a bank It's not the measure of success in my measure of success is if you produce them then I think it is a measure But if you haven't produced them, it's not a measure of anything. It's a hard argument to make It's not a question of I mean, it's a sense of consciousness But it's not a consciousness that you know, I just think That just like sudden foods are good for you and sudden foods are poison, right? And it's sometimes hard to tell I mean, we still have huge debates about what's nutrition and what isn't and what's good for you And what isn't the science is complicated, right? I think the same thing is true of our spiritual life Certain actions are good for us. They make for a good life Certain actions are bad for us. They make for a bad life I think that the actions and our gore takes are bad for him And the battle is to convince people of the truth of that In a sense, I believe morality are the doctors of the spirit Just like nutritionists are the doctors of our material, you know, they tell us what kind of food is good for us Right morality should tell us what kind of actions are good for us. What kind of ideas. What kind of values are good for us And I think that when you engage in bad stuff, it's not that you have some kind of consciousness Where you know what's good, but you're doing something even you don't even know it's good It's just that's the impact that's having on your life. It's not good And it's, you know, it's hard because we've been so conditioned Differently in terms of what is good and what is evil. Yes So again, let me let me let me do a personal morality and then talk about the politics of it. Well Unless you define it as a moral problem, it never rises So I don't think people think of it as a moral problem and therefore they never make it They never think about So and this is the problem. So if we teach people this is what happens in business schools We teach people the morality is about being selfless and about sacrifice and stakeholders and profit is not moral and all this stuff And then we tell them to go out and make money Right, so we send them out into the world with no moral guidance I in business ethics class the only thing I was taught was Don't do anything that you don't want to appear the next day in the in the new york times front page of the new york times That's not moral guidance. That's just stupid right, so We give them no moral guidance So what do people do and indeed we give them the opposite of all guidance. What do we tell people? We tell people pragmatism be a pragmatist What does pragmatism mean pragmatism means short time horizon do whatever you can get away with That's what we're teaching people. That's what we teach politicians That's what we teach our children and that's what we teach businessmen And then you have enron and again enron wasn't a case where they sat down and said, hmm How can we cheat our shareholders and make lots of money in the process? No, it was a little pragmatic step at a time with a short time horizon Where every cheat every time they cheated it was just a little thing and they were gonna make up for it later And slowly it grew into something they couldn't control. That's how most of fraud in business happens It's very rare that somebody sits down and thinks well, how can I cheat people that doesn't happen that often So pragmatism is what we teach people as long as we teach them that you'll get that kind of behavior What i'm advocating is for reason reason by definition is long term reason by definition takes into account the full consequences And I actually don't think there is a conflict between the short term and the long term I don't think bernie made off ever enjoyed his money I mean, he might have had momentary moments where he enjoyed it, right? But I don't think he had spans of months or years where he enjoyed his money Right any more than I think that a cocaine addict enjoys his life He might get a high from the cocaine in the very short period, but it's not like he lives through months of high Right the high goes away and life sucks Because he's a cocaine addict. It's not good for you. It turns out, right? So don't do it And you don't have to think 40 years into the future Just think a year into the future just think two years just think of the consequences of your actions so Reason demands long-term thinking But what I'm arguing for is to think Just start the process You know start the process of thinking and in particularly in the political world today. We're not thinking We're not taking into account the facts of reality. Nobody in America wants to deal with economic reality. Nobody Nobody wants to think about the unfunded liabilities Nobody is thinking about what what the regulatory state is doing to the economy Nobody is thinking It's not even short term versus long term But when you don't think what is there there's only short term because within our perceptual realm Right, what's an emotional realm? We only relate to the short term Reason is what demands long term And when you take reason out of the equation you get Exactly the behavior you described. So We need to emphasize the long term. We need to emphasize time horizons But it's not like your It's not like life is good in the short term bad economic policy is bad short term and really bad long term I guess I just don't see it right apple makes 60 profit. I know Why do I care? Why is it any of my business? I have to make this something when I go and buy an iphone I have to decide is this worth 300 dollars to me What who elephants is it what it's worth to the other side? I actually know what it's worth to the other side less than 300. That's why they're selling it to me When you sell when you go and buy a car put aside an iphone and you're willing to pay In danmark cars are expensive, right? Um Completely market driven reasons. I understand You pay 40 000 dollars for a car How much is it worth to the seller? Well, you know exactly how much it's worth to the seller less than 40 000. That's why they're selling it All you care about see Let me turn this into an ethical point If you believe that the purpose of life is self-sacrifice if nobility and virtue is self-less Then you look at the other party you look at apple and say wait a minute If they were moral they'd be selling this at the loss to me Those bastards they're making a profit. They're being selfish and self-interested Your focus your whole orientation is on them What does a self-interested person do? You look at the iphone or you look at the car and say Is this going to improve my life? Is it worth 300 dollars? Yes, you buy it. That's it You're not interested in what other people are doing and this is why Altruism selflessness drives envy It creates a society of envy Because if you believe that the ideal is equality That the ideal is being people being selfless And they're rich people over there. Well, they must be immoral because they're not giving me their money Morality says I should be equal to them So how come they're not giving me their money? Your whole orientation is I'm pissed off. I'm upset at those people. I don't like them I'm envious. I'm jealous But if you're about self-interest then your whole focus is about how can I make my life better? If money is important, what's the best job I can find to make as much money as I can? That's it. Oh this other guys make you a lot of money Oh, well that means He's providing a service or a product that people value and they're making their lives better by making him rich That's okay Your whole orientation changes once you change the moral perspective on the problem And as long as we hold that selflessness is ideal, we will always resent profit We will always resent the rich But the fact is that nobody forces you to buy an iphone Nobody forces you to take the job at six bucks an hour Nobody forces you to buy the bread at whatever the bread costs You make the choice because you would rather have the bread than the two dollars Because the bread is more valuable to you If not do something else with the two dollars Here we have two minutes or two questions Okay, last question Yeah So You know, so the question is the the chinese are buying up the world You know And and this is Is this a real problem? um Yes and no I remember I went to business school in the late 1980s And the number one problem that we were taught Was that the japanese were buying up the world I mean i'm serious you guys forget, but they were buying up the best golf courses in america They you remember the Rockefeller center in new york the japanese bought that at the peak They lost a lot of money on that Right they did And the free market response was Great, they're probably overpaying somebody's selling. This is cool, right? And what happened to that they're right there, right? They didn't do too well, right? um Now china's a a different dynamic, but it's a very similar dynamic Um other people buying your natural resources is not a problem I generally don't think natural resources is a problem. There's ton. There's no shortage of natural resources out there uh, you know They're finding so much natural gas and oil right now in america That's going to make saudi arabia look like an insignificant, you know in a few years if they're allowed to do this um technology You know the only resource that's limited the only resource that's limited is what? the human mind There's no limit to resources. We can always figure out how to find more or something else or better So I don't believe that the re that there's some finite amount of resources and the chinese are going to buy them all I just don't think that's going to happen I also happen to think that the chinese have got some real big fundamental economic problems That they are still managing to disguise because they've got so You know their economy is in such transition that they can still disguise those but they're huge problems They will either become you know more capitalist because You know in a sense of shrinking their public sector Or they are going to have a real financial disaster on their hands just like Japan did Just like Japan did of course at the same time looking into the future the west is in decline Europe and the united states are in decline And I don't see anything stopping that Because what is going to have to happen is a real change in ideas And the fact is that in spite of me loving doing all this and Speaking all over the world and trying to get people wild up It's not enough. I'm not that good um The chances of me of us winning those of us who believe in capitalism is not that great You know we've got to fight says my view you can't just pretend You know lay down and pretend you're dead you got to fight but let's be realistic The the the the number of people amassed against us Both in physical number of people the amount of money the amount of intellectual Power that they have the fact that they control the educational institutions from when a kid is this big until they're in college They got all that We're struggling against all of that So you have to if you were a betting guy, right? You'd have to bet against the for the decline of the west I happen to think china cannot survive without the west China's inspired they model ultimately is a is a western model if the west declines they will decline to So I think I think we need to really focus on saving us I don't think we should worry about the chinese I think we need to make ourselves as free as we can we need to fight for our own freedom We need to try to make us as Capitalist as successful as prosperous As possible that's enough of a battle, right? That's a that's that's that's a lifetime worth of fighting if we can resurrect The the individualistic spirit that made the west right what made the west Is Aristotle it's the Greeks, but it's really a unique period in human history, which is the enlightenment The enlightenment is what makes the west special and the enlightenment is two ideas coming together And these ideas are dying The two ideas are reason Manifest in the scientific revolution of the 18th century 17th and 18th century and individualism It's that merge of individualism and reason that made the west what it is And that's what's dying And that's what we need to fight for and if we can win that fight then the chinese don't matter. Thank you all Thank you very much. Iran. I've seen you a number of times now, and you're always right on form So that was a terrific performance very coherent very logical very very strong arguments So I hope we all We all feel a little bit more safe in our capitalistic foundation after listening to this I'm very sorry to have to cut you short because I see everybody was Excited, but I did also want us to have the promised glass of wine and and the reason I particularly wanted this because I had my birthday on saturday in this very room and I surprisingly overestimated my my guests capacity to drink And I have some I have some guests with pretty good capacity in in that area But there was actually some very good wine left over. So This is the wine we had for my for my for my birthday It will not always be that quality if you come out for a meeting So so you got to come for the speaker as well, but but for now. Thank you very much for coming and Thanks again to you ron. Let's give him one more hand